About Glytec
We’re on a mission to improve the lives of patients managing glycemic issues, and those who administer their care, by optimizing insulin therapy.
Founded in 2006, Glytec is the insulin management software company for healthcare providers focused on improving the quality and cost of care. Our FDA-cleared titration software and proprietary algorithms power the only solution capable of delivering personalized insulin treatment recommendations across the continuum of care, from hospital to home.
With ongoing support from its team of doctors, nurses and technologists headquartered outside of Boston, Glytec improves outcomes and controls costs for the large population of patients requiring insulin treatment – including those with and without a diagnosis of diabetes.
We have expertise with the successful transition from sliding-scale to basal-bolus insulin for hospitalized patients, as recommended by the American Diabetes Association, American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, Society of Hospital Medicine and other authoritative sources. Our clients have sustained enterprise-wide utilization at, or above, 95% of eligible patients and annualized cost savings as high as $20,000 per licensed bed.
The safety and efficacy of our solutions have been validated by more than 65 research studies. Results have included dramatic reductions in hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, lengths of stay, readmissions, A1C levels and costs of care.
Our workforce is more than 80 strong and growing, and we pride ourselves in hiring experienced, educated and accomplished professionals who are passionate about our mission. Our team brings together a strong background in many areas of healthcare, especially related to endocrinology and diabetology.
Clients of Glytec include local and regional health systems, academic medical centers, independent community hospitals, ACOs and health plans throughout the United States. We have offices in Waltham, Massachusetts and Greenville, South Carolina.
DID YOU KNOW?
-
1/3 of hospital inpatients experience hyperglycemia, with up to 1/3 of these individuals having no previous history of diabetes.1
-
An estimated 30.3 million people in the U.S. are living with diabetes, including one of every nine adults over age 18 and one of every four over age 65.2-3
-
There are 1.5 million new diagnoses of diabetes every year -- one every 21 seconds.2-3
-
Annualized total health care costs for people with diabetes are more than double the costs of people without diabetes, and hospitalization costs are four times higher.4-5
-
One of every five health care dollars, and one of every three Medicare dollars, are spent on people with diabetes.4
-
Whereas the overall 30-day readmission rate of all patients is 8.4-13.9%,6-9 the 30-day readmission rate of patients with diabetes is 14.4-26.0%.8-16
Why should insulin management be a top priority?
Similar to blood pressure, temperature and other vital signs, when patients’ blood glucose levels are outside the normal range, safety risks escalate and incidence of complications and sentinel events increase dramatically. The bottom line: uncontrolled patient blood glucose leads to greater resource utilization, prolonged lengths of stay and higher 30-day readmission rates.
Glycemic control is a fundamental tenet of high-reliability care, yet variation is pervasive and systemization is sorely lacking.
In acute care settings, all patients, both with and without diabetes, are vulnerable to safety risks surrounding glycemic control. Any hospitalized patient, at any time, may experience hyperglycemia -- a state of elevated blood glucose brought on by the stress of illness or treatment received.
For this reason, some 30-40% of inpatients require insulin therapy during their stay, a medication that although widely prescribed and absolutely necessary, is inherently dangerous. Insulin is involved in 16.3% of medication error reports for high-alert medications, more than any other medication type. Insulin is considered a high-alert medication because it has the potential to cause significant patient harm if misused.17-19
Improper insulin management, including the overtreatment, undertreatment or mistreatment of hyperglycemia, can lead to hypoglycemia (a state of abnormally low blood glucose) and potentially catastrophic consequences, such as coma, kidney failure, stroke, paralysis, sepsis, brain damage, cardiac arrest and death.20-41
Our solutions help overcome therapeutic inertia.
Unlike most medications that have two or three standard dosing options, insulin is far more complex and must be individualized to each patient. It also requires an iterative and nuanced adjustment process referred to as “titration” that accounts for the patient’s response to insulin as well as their insulin sensitivities, changing clinical conditions and trends in blood glucose.
Many clinicians hesitate to prescribe insulin or to adjust dosing after they do, even when indications are present. Whether stemming from insufficient knowledge, lack of confidence or fear of causing hypoglycemia, this inaction, or “therapeutic inertia,” compromises patient safety and quality of care.
Glytec’s Glucommander is purpose built to overcome therapeutic inertia by delivering evidence-based decision support at the point of care. Our proprietary algorithms do the heavy lifting, programmatically responding to each patient’s unique circumstance and computing when and by how much their insulin dose should be adjusted and creating personalized dosing recommendations for providers.
Bruce Bode, MD
References:
1. "Managing Diabetes and Hyperglycemia in the Hospital Setting: A Clinician's Guide" By Boris Draznin
2. American Diabetes Association. Statistics about diabetes. http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/
3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. National diabetes statistics report, 2017.
4. American Diabetes Association. Yang W, Dall TM, Halder P, Gallo P, Kowal SL, Hogan PF. Economic costs of diabetes in the U.S. in 2012. Diabetes Care. 2013 Apr;36(4):1033-46.
5. The diabetes dilemma, Express Scripts, 2017.
6. Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. Hospital readmissions in Pennsylvania 2010. 2012; 1-24.
7. Friedman B, Jiang HJ, Elixhauser A. Costly hospital readmissions and complex chronic illness. Inquiry. 2008-2009 Winter;45(4):408-21.
8. Fingar KR, Barrett ML, Jiang HJ. A comparison of all-cause 7-day and 30-day readmissions, 2014. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Center for Delivery, Organization, and Markets, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), Nationwide Readmissions Database (NRD). Oct 2017.
9. Sonmez H, Kambo V, Avtanski D, Lutsky L, Poretsky L. The readmission rates in patients with versus those without diabetes mellitus at an urban teaching hospital. J Diabetes Complications. 2017 Dec;31(12):1681-1685.
10. Robbins JM, Webb DA. Diagnosing diabetes and preventing rehospitalizations: the urban diabetes study. Med Care. 2006 Mar;44(3):292-6.
11. Ostling S, et al. The relationship between diabetes mellitus and 30-day readmission rates. Clin Diabetes Endocrinol. 2017 Mar 22;3:3.
12. Bennett KJ, Probst JC, Vyavaharkar M, Glover SH. Lower rehospitalization rates among rural Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes. J Rural Health. 2012 Summer;28(3):227-34.
13. Rubin DJ, Handorf E, McDonnell M. Predicting early readmission risk among hospitalized patients with diabetes. ENDO 2013: The Endocrine Society 95th Annual Meeting. 2013; P-7796.
14. Chen JY, Ma Q, Chen H, Yermilov I. New bundled world: quality of care and readmission in diabetes patients. J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2012 May 1;6(3):563-71.
15. Rubin D, McDonnell M, Nelson D, Zhao H, Golden SH. Predicting hospital readmission risk with a novel tool: the diabetes early readmission risk index (DERRI). American Diabetes Association 74th Scientific Sessions. 2014; P-1508.
16. Kim H, Ross JS, Melkus GD, Zhao Z, Boockvar K. Scheduled and unscheduled hospital readmissions among patients with diabetes. Am J Manag Care. 2010 Oct;16(10):760-7.
17. Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority. Focus on high-alert medications. Pa Patient Saf Advis. 2004;1(3):6. http://patientsafety.pa.gov/ADVISORIES/Pages/200409_06.aspx
18. Hellman R. A systems approach to reducing errors in insulin therapy in the inpatient setting. Endocr Pract. 2004 Mar-Apr;10 Suppl 2:100-8.
19. Institute for Safe Medication Practices. High-Alert Medications in Acute Care Settings. July 2014. https://www.ismp.org/recommendations/high-alert-medications-acute-list.
20. Umpierrez GE, et al. Management of hyperglycemia in hospitalized patients in non-critical care setting: An Endocrine Society clinical practice guideline. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2012 Jan;97(1):16-38.
21. The ACE/ADA Task Force on Inpatient Diabetes. American College of Endocrinology and American Diabetes Association consensus statement on inpatient diabetes and glycemic control: a call to action. Diabetes Care. 2006 Aug;29(8):1955-62. Endocr Pract. 2006 Jul-Aug;12(4):458-68.
22. Braithwaite SS, et al. Hospital hypoglycemia: not only treatment but also prevention. Endocr Pract. 2004 Mar-Apr;10 Suppl 2:89-99.
23. Moghissi ES, et al. American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and American Diabetes Association consensus statement on inpatient glycemic control. Diabetes Care. 2009 Jun;32(6):1119-31. Endocr Pract. 2009 May-Jun;15(4):353-69.
24. Institute for Safe Medication Practices. Guidelines for optimizing safe subcutaneous insulin use in adults. 2017.
25. Hellman R. Patient safety and inpatient glycemic control: translating concepts into action. Endocr Pract. 2006 Jul-Aug;12 Suppl 3:49-55.
26. Hellman R. A systems approach to reducing errors in insulin therapy in the inpatient setting. Endocr Pract. 2004 Mar-Apr;10 Suppl 2:100-8.
27. Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority. Medication errors with the dosing of insulin: problems across the continuum. Pa Patient Saf Advis 2010 Mar;7(1):9-17.
28. Amori RE, et al. Inpatient medical errors involving glucose-lowering medications and their impact on patients: review of 2,598 incidents from a voluntary electronic error reporting database. Endocr Pract. 2008 Jul-Aug;14(5):535-42.
29. Classen DC, Jaser L, Budnitz DS. Adverse drug events among hospitalized Medicare patients: epidemiology and national estimates from a new approach to surveillance. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf. 2010 Jan;36(1):12-21.
30. Varghese P, Gleason V, Sorokin R, Senholzi C, Jabbour S, Gottlieb JE. Hypoglycemia in hospitalized patients treated with antihyperglycemic agents. J Hosp Med. 2007 Jul;2(4):234-40.
31. Smith WD, Winterstein AG, Johns T, Rosenberg E, Sauer BC. Causes of hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia in adult inpatients. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2005 Apr 1;62(7):714-9.
32. Winterstein AG, Hatton RC, Gonzalez-Rothi R, Johns TE, Segal R. Identifying clinically significant preventable adverse drug events through a hospital’s database of adverse drug reaction reports. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2002 Sep 15;59(18):1742-9.
33. Cousins D, Rosario C, Scarpello J. Insulin, hospitals and harm: a review of patient safety incidents reported to the National Patient Safety Agency. Clin Med (Lond). 2011 Feb;11(1):28-30.
34. Garrouste-Orgeas M, et al. Selected medical errors in the intensive care unit: results of the IATROREF study: parts I and II. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2010 Jan 15;181(2):134-42.
35. Cornish W. Safe and appropriate use of insulin and other antihyperglycemic agents in hospital. Can J Diabetes. 2014 Apr;38(2):94-100.
36. Spector WD, Limcangco R, Furukawa MF, Encinosa WE. The marginal costs of adverse drug events associated with exposures to anticoagulants and hypoglycemic agents during hospitalization. Med Care. 2017 Sep;55(9):856-863.
37. Cryer PE. Death during intensive glycemic therapy of diabetes: mechanisms and implications. Am J Med. 2011 Nov;124(11):993-6.
38. Cohen MR. Pharmacists’ role in ensuring safe and effective hospital use of insulin. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2010 Aug;67(16 Suppl 8):S17-21.
39. Alrwisan A, Ross J, Williams D. Medication incidents reported to an online incident reporting system. Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 2011 May;67(5):527-32.
40. Thomas AN, Panchagnula U. Medication-related patient safety incidents in critical care: a review of reports to the UK National Patient Safety Agency. Anaesthesia. 2008 Jul;63(7):726-33.
41. Schwenk ES, Mraovic B, Maxwell RP, Kim GS, Ehrenfeld JM, Epstein RH. Root causes of intraoperative hypoglycemia: a case series. J Clin Anesth. 2012 Dec;24(8):625-30.